LinkedIn App Redesign

LinkedIn App Redesign

Overview

We chose to identify problems and/or opportunities of the existing LinkedIn mobile application and utilise the knowledge to create a redesign. We had two weeks to complete this project and focused primarily on the usability and content of the app.

Business Goals

LinkedIn is a social network specifically designed for career and business professionals to connect. Targeted at professionals, companies & recruiters.

Vision

To create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce.

Mission

Connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.

How Does LinkedIn Make Money?

Premium subscriptions

Allows users to unlock certain features that are not available to its normal users

Talent Solutions

Premium recruiting tools for the companies and recruiters to help them find the most suitable employees/partners for their business

What’s The Problem?

Feature Analysis/Content Audit: I focused specifically on this task in order to find out what could potentially be improved in terms of content. This analysis showed us that the app is essentially a direct copy of the website, which may work on the desktop, however on the app there is a serious overload of information and it is not as clear since the size of a phone is significantly smaller than a desktop. We also realised that there were many hidden functions that were available such as career advice, which is currently not made very obvious in the app.

Heuristic Evaluation: We evaluated the usability of the current LinkedIn app based on Jakob Nielsen’s Usability Heuristics and concluded such:

Cluttered

Icons are unclear and their content is not what is expected

Difficult to withdraw actions

Sectioning and categorisation unclear

Many hidden features

User Research & Interviews: We sent out a survey and conducted interviews in order to find out how participants generally used the app, if there were any common difficulties and whether they were aware/used the hidden functions. In addition, we asked questions regarding the heuristics we identified to find out whether they had problems with these as well.

Personas: From our research and interviews, we found that we had three different types of users. We chose our primary persona to be Foward-Looking Timothy because most of our participants depicted this persona.

Customer Journey Map: We explored Timothy’s experience where we decided which problems to address in order to provide a better usability experience overall.

Redesigning & Testing

Content Strategy: The problems identified were largely to do with structure of content, which we found through user interviews and usability tests. We prioritised and moved certain things according to what our participants deemed most important and less important.

Usability Testing: We conducted two rounds of testing where our participants were asked to perform tasks according to our persona, Timothy, and to validate anything we had changed from the last iteration. We also wanted to bring out the more hidden functions (such as Salary Insights) which we placed into areas where users expected them to be and would find useful.

Our final tests and results showed us that participants were able to complete the tasks and were satisfied with the information presented and the way it was presented. The current LinkedIn app scored 53/100 on the System Usability Survey scale, whereas our redesigned app scored 80/100.

LinkedIn Redesigned App

De-cluttered information

Reorganised content

Brought out more hidden functions

Took out icons that did not make sense and introduced hamburger icon in bottom navigation bar as ‘others’

Thoughts

Scoping from the beginning and throughout is important in order to remember to prioritise what you are focusing on.